|
Report on the fungus foray of 9th October 2010
Nineteen people came on the foray - ten adults and nine children. The younger members of the party were particularly good at getting in amongst the undergrowth.
Thirty-nine species were identified on the day [see the list below]. Whilst this seems a good number we could expect to find many more fungi on the site! It should be remembered that 'fungi' are not limited to the larger toadstools and mushrooms, the term ‘fungi’ also includes micro fungi such as rusts and smuts and moulds. We only found a brief sample during the foray - there will be many more that either weren't fruiting at the time we visited (due to time of year or weather conditions), or we just didn't find them on the day.
It is interesting to note that over recent years mycologists have discovered a number of continental/warmer climate species in this country. With climate warming perhaps we can expect a few more in the years to come? Although we did not find anything particularly rare, it was quite good to come across the two types of Earthstars which are not too common.
Most species we found were within the woodland (these being associated with trees or decomposing leaf litter), though we found the 3 types of waxcaps in the meadows (grassland species).
The common names listed in the table are quite interesting - giving us a
descriptive name to otherwise meaningless Latin. All this helps when
starting out with identifying new finds such as Orange Coral Fungus (because
that's what it looks like!), Shaggy Inkcap, Candle Snuff Fungus and Tar Spot.
|
